Thank You and Goodnight...

If we don't change, we don't grow.
If we don't grow, we aren't really living.
-GAIL SHEEHY-

So an Anonymous, But Fairly Nice Person just posted a very fair question to my blog.

"So this blog is pretty much dead, right?" they asked.

And it occurs to me that this person deserves a thoughtful response. If only because there's a single person out there who enjoyed what I put here, I genuinely appreciate that. I don't know. Maybe there's more of you lurking out there in the shadows, who might similarly wonder why I'm so silent. I thought a formal response might be in order.

Without making any sort of formal decision, I've decided to retire this blog. A couple of different factors have all come together to make this an inevitable decision. And a single inciting incident put it all into a clear perspective for me. I feel that this decision is inevitable.

Here's why I've decided to close the doors here...

First, I've undergone a bit of a job change. Working at the theater produces a different work-load for me, than previous jobs. When I first started this blog, I was working at a housing firm and I could spare an hour or so, a day, to write out a long, lengthy blog post. Something worth reading. I started THIS job in October, 2007 and initially I was sequestered downstairs, alone with my good friend, Jenn Kincaid. That allowed me some time to blog an occasional entry or two. But when, in August of last year, I got moved upstairs, right outside my bosses office, the end was in sight. It's difficult to produce a coherent thought when my old boss is around, much less produce any written work of any value.

Backstage, here at the blog, I probably have three dozen unfinished blog entries from August to now. I would start an entry, get three paragraphs in and then get pulled away by the work, unable to return. Those entries will just live backstage, never to see the light of day.

And it made it pretty clear that office hours are not good hours for blogging anymore.

Second, I originally began this blog as a response to a social change at my favorite social networking site, CIN. An online discussion forum for Chicago improvisers. A place where all of my favorite people met up to make jokes, post funny pictures and explore extended, online bits. Good times.

But then, some real douchebags in the improv community took over and made it clear that I (and a few others) were not welcome there and I decided to leave that board, rather than stick around and wait to be tossed out, publicly.

So, I started a blog. To have a creative outlet. And as a place to record the memories of my life here and my childhood, that I feared that I would lose to time. Of course, the more I wrote, the more I wanted to explore other things. I had a t-shirt contest once. I played elaborate jokes on people. I treated the blog like a newsletter about me, published for free, to anyone who wanted to read it.

And generally speaking, it was no holds barred. Everything was up for discussion. My past. My mistakes. My anxieties. My plans. My sexuality. My friends. Everything was open for discussion. With one caveat, I tried to keep my current romantic relationships down to a minimum. Girlfriends would feature in an entry, but they were participants in an adventure and less deconstructions of my actual relationships. Well, that was my intention, anyways. I can see that I didn't exactly manage to avoid it, all the time.

But with the addition of Facebook, I have a community of friends to interact with again. CIN, for all intents and purposes, is dead. The douchebags all fled in a single move and then a new crop of posters popped up and I think for some of us old-timers, it was a little depressing to hear the same old questions asked over and over again. And to notice the slow, quiet silence of old friends who didn't visit the boards anymore. As it turns out, all of those old friends are on the Facebook (in some capacity) so that's a good place for me to visit with them.

CIN no longer serves any function.
In the same way, my blog is less necessary as a refuge.

One more thing happened here, that is worth mentioning. I think it's relevant to my decision to close the doors here.

In late January of this year, oh, a month and a half ago, now, I had a really bad birthday. By sheer bad luck, the people that I am closest with were almost entirely unavailable. (Not everyone. I had a few close friends out for my birthday.) Let's just say that there were some faces that I was missing.

And there was a girl that I fancied a bit and that pretty much fell apart, right in front of my eyes, at the party.

And there was another girl that I had no interest in, whatsoever, who waited until I was too drunk to defend myself, before shoving her hands down my pants and molesting me.

And my solution to this terrible set of unfortunate circumstances, was the exactly wrong one. I walked calmly up to the bartender and asked him to knock me unconscious with booze. He obliged me. I even took the rare opportunity to allow my deejay to smoke weed with me, outside. So, I was functionally retarded, by the time I left the bar. Drunk, high, being molested by the exactly wrong person and feeling terribly, terribly lonely.

When I got home, it got worse. Joe was away at his fiance's apartment, as he is most nights now. The dog was happy to see me and that was a small comfort. I got home and I changed into my pajamas and went out on the couch to sit down, a whirlwind of self-destructive thoughts raging in my head. I sat down calmly on the couch and had myself a little bit of a breakdown.

I started crying a little bit.
And then I cried a lot.
And then the floodgates opened and I fell over into a fetal position and openly wept.

I questioned everything. I analyzed all of my recent decisions. I questioned all of my big life choices too. Who I was. How I got there. Where I was going. What I'd done wrong. I focused pretty hard on what I'd done wrong. In fact, I would say that was a central theme of the whole meltdown - the things I'd done wrong in my life.

Believe it or not, this stupid, silly little blog was a part of all of that. I felt ashamed that I thought that this blog was anything of value. I felt embarrassed that I'd ever opened up the doors for the general public to view it. It felt like the ridiculous and pathetic height of hubris to assume that I had anything of value to say and even worse, the tone-deaf expectation that anyone would want to hear what I had to say.

I mean, who does this? Who lives their lives so publicly? Who enforces such an artificial audience/ performer relationship on the people in their lives?

It just seemed to shallow and so vain and absolutely unforgivable.

To be clear, at the same time that I was questioning the purpose for this blog, I also decided that I had shamed my mother and that she probably only pretended to love and support me, when she really would like for me to just act like a normal person for once. So, I might've been trolling around off the deep end, a little bit there.

I cried myself to sleep on the couch. Alone in a ramshackle apartment that I hate. Surrounded by a larger city that I love. But as isolated as any man could feel.

The next morning, the hangover eventually went away, but the questions I asked myself stuck around. And I knew, without absolute certainty, that this was a dying proposition. I was probably going to end this blog, some time soon.

I was at the end of this two year experiment.

Some very good friends, Ian, Crescent, Kyle, Paul and Todd have expressed a genuine interest in this blog and what I have to say. For them, I tried to bake up a few verbal pies, between the end of January and now. But let's face it, they weren't very good. To them, and to anyone else out there that I don't know about, I encourage you to open other doors of communication with me. Come and participate with me in the half-hoakum stories that you read about here for a short time. There is always a place at my table for anyone who wants one. In any social setting. You're always welcome. (Even if you shove your hands down my pants when I'm too drunk to defend myself. Strike that, especially when you shove your hands down my pants when I'm too drunk to defend myself.)

I can feel myself standing on the edge of making some big decisions for myself. I am coming up on 9 years of being in Chicago. I feel like there are things here that I've not pursued, that I genuinely want. I feel like I am running out of time. I feel like I better get a move on, if I want to get things done. I feel like I am on the threshold of living somewhere else now, even if I don't know where that somewhere else is, just yet.

I also feel like this dumb zombie musical, might be my swan song. The last thing I direct or produce for a good while. I am enjoying the whole process, but there seems to be an imperceptible air of finality about this project. So, I'm accepting that and working with the assumption that there are other things for me, beyond this. Perhaps just not in the theatrical arts. The unforeseen challenges will be undertaken privately, without public documentation. Some of you will know well about them, because you'll likely be directly involved.

I guess this is the end bit here. Where I end things out.

Please allow me to thank you, whoever you are, wherever you are, for the times that you checked in here and read my dumb blog posts. Thank you for the very funny, kind responses. Thank you for playing along with me and humoring me, when necessary. And thank you for the lovely, private ways that you shared your lives with me. Sincerely, thank you.

So, leave a comment or two if you fancy it, close your web browser and let's meet up at the bar some time to share a laugh or two.

It will be good to talk about what I'm up to without two or three people saying, "We know this already. We read your blog."

It will be good to focus on living life, as it happens. Without partially checking out to make mental notes of a record that I want to eventually make of the event.

It will be good.

Cheers,
COB

"So goodnight, boys, goodnight!"
-The Decemberists-
-Shanty for the Arethusa.-

Some Sick Upgrades...

Forgive my clunkiness. I am re-learning how to blog.

Life continues, even if I am not commenting about it. Even now, I am so tired from a fucked-up sleep schedule that as I am typing this, I am thinking "Go to bed. Stop typing and go to bed." over and over in my head. But then another part of me feels guilty for the recent radio silence. So, we'll see if we can't hammer out a quit blog post.

Because things are happening. There are things to talk about. To tell you about. I don't know who still checks this blog anymore. But the people who used to check it, might find this of interest. In any case, it can serve as a Message In a Bottle for you, waiting until the next time that you stop around.

"Sickest Stories" continues it's mad march into it's second year. While you've been away, not seeing the show (no worries, we're all busy), our audiences have been slowly and steadily increasing. At a recent organizational meeting (did I mention that we meet once a month now to prep for shows and look at long-range plans for the show) our very talented graphic artist, Alan, pointed out that the show had about 10 or 15 people in the audience, when he saw it in October of last year. Every show since then, is averaging 40 or 48 people, per show. Part of the growth is that we're growing a little more liberal with our comp program. (We now comp potential guests and a friend and since there's no shortage of people wanting to do the show, that adds an additional 6 - 10 people per show.) Beyond those comps, though, we're averaging 25 - 30 paying customers per show. And we get very, very few improvisers in our house. So, that works out to 25 - 30 paying, actual theater-going audience members. Very exciting.

And they have good reason to come see our show. We've added pre-show videos now. Jim Burchill, our videographer, creates these insane 20 minute long montages of short-attention-span clips. One second, you're looking at a karate fight scene from a 70's kung fu film, then you see a flash of a rhinos erect penis and then, WHAMMO, you're looking at Frankenstein dancing with Go-Go girls. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Just random, sick, dirty images flashing on the screen with barely visible subliminal messages flashed at you from time to time. (The pre-show video is messing with you, encouraging you to go down on someone, anyone, before the night is up. Dirty, dirty, dirty.)

The guest lineup continues to be as eclectic and insane as you could possibly expect it to be. In addition to two regular cast members (my staff) you'll see 2 or 3 special guest panel members. Last month, we had a friend of the show, who happened to be on "The Apprentice" last season. Next month, we're looking to book a guy who finger-banged Paris Hilton (before she was Paris Hilton). I don't know if his story is true. That's for the audience to decide. I just want that story to be interesting. Looking ahead, I've got guest slots from our favorite Magician, a Briton who has the most interesting Thailand whore stories, a return from our resident nurse and ... it's too early to say it... but we might be booking a Major Celebrity Type to come in and do our show in April. Cross fingers for that one, kiddies! (I'll spoil it here first, if we actually manage to book this guy.)

We have a sponsor now, too. In exchange for a huge stack of comps (retail value - $480), we're getting t-shirts printed for the whole staff of the show. The sponsor is a new bar, opening up in Chicago. The comps will be prizes given out at their Tuesday Night Trashy Trivia contest. Because their trivia will be every Tuesday, we'll be giving out 16 comps, every month, to come see our monthly dirty, comedy show. I welcome all of those comp holders, as the show is currently booking 40 of the 65+ seats at the theater. Even if they don't pay me cold, hard cash, these new sponsor-guests, will fill out my crowd, giving my paying audience members a fuller house and a better show. In exchange for the comps, I get these kick ass staff t-shirts.

I guess I can go ahead and spill the design for the shirts. Alan and I came up with them. I really dig them.

This is the front of the t-shirt.


And this is the back.


Here's a close-up of the symbol on the front.


Our sponsor is ordering 8 of those. One for every guy on my crew, Me, Greg, Fuzzy, Alan, Jim, Mike and Harz. And one extra one for Edison Girard. Who did the original design for that chip logo. I never got to pay Edison for his design work. So, I thought I would give him Something Special to thank him for working on the show, way back in the spring of 2007. (Shh, don't tell him. He doesn't know that I am doing this for him.)

My plan is that these "Staff" shirts are limited editions. For staff only. The only way to get one is to work on the show. Or blow one of the guys in the bathroom of the Town Hall Pub to get his shirt from him. Work out your own deals.

In the future, if I do another run of shirts, they'll have some different design on them. The only way to get THIS shirt is to be working on the show, right now.

And if the sponsorship between this new bar and our show goes well and they ask for another batch of comps in three months, we can work out another deal, where they print up ten regular SFS shirts for me, in exchange for the comps and I sell those to the first ten, paying audience members. Same deal. 1 design only. Once those sell, we sell another design to the next 10 paying audience members. All profit, of course, goes to the shows festival kitty.

In addition to that bar, we're also considering sponsorship from a local sex shop. I am working out the particulars for how this would work. I'm considering asking them to pay for the printing of some new marketing materials for the show. (I sure would like an exterior vinyl banner for the theater on show nights) in exchange for product placement on our website, our programs and our podcast.

That's right. We will very soon have a podcast. Fuzzy and I taped the February show. We designed an aural soundscape for the show. How it would sound. How it would feel. We recorded some intro materials for the podcast and the first one should hit this weekend. The second one should hit Wednesday or Thursday of next week. Our goal is to take each show and break it up into two different 10 - 12 minute clips, record a little intro for it and then post them, every two weeks. Once we get a small library of podcasts, 6 to 8 of them, we want to distribute them through Itunes. (Initially, they'll only be on our website).

A podcast was always in the plan for the show. I'm a big podcast listener. I know how much I value the podcasts that actually make me laugh or think. I particularly like ones that post with regularity. Between Fuzzy and I, we think we can release our own promotional podcast every two weeks. The whole point of them, of course, is to direct attention (national attention) back to the show. Which sells tickets, which adds to the show's Festival Kitty!

Also, a podcast is a fun way for our guests to relive their time on the show. And share it with friends. It's a thing I can direct my friends to and say, "Here. Listen to this. I help produce this." So, I do have some pride in the creation of the podcast. Fingers are officially crossed that the final product sounds as good as I want it to.

One more thing, before I close this blog entry out. We've been approached by another theater to come produce the show in their theater, as early as July or August. Rent is comparable to our current rent. We would pick up significantly more seats and the theater will feature a full bar. The theater is in a high traffic area of town and could be a big, big move for us. At the same time that we might move there, we're considering going to a bi-weekly production schedule. Every other week. I certainly have enough guests for it. Audience interest will be the final arbiter of that decision, though. No sense in moving to any theater, if people won't come out and see you do your show. (The same theater is also asking for the BBR to come to them. I'll be passing along email addresses shortly. That show has it's own very smart set of producers to figure that out.)

Oh and did I mention that we're adding a guy in a Penis suit to talk up the show, outside before it begins? Mine will look just like the one below, except we want to put ours in a collar, a black bow-tie, white gloves and a top-hat. Call him, "Mr.Penis!"

Yeah, things are looking up for "The Sickest F***ing Stories I Ever Heard" in 2009.

Cheers,
Mr.B



PS. Next time, I'll update you on SOTD, which is moving forward too!

Chasing Dragons...

So, the video for my adventures in Chinatown have hit and it actually looks pretty good. The editing is smooth and the clips are actually pretty charming.

Check it out!



Cheers,
Mr.B

I am Slide-Showy!

Greg sent me a link tonight to a cool slideshow of pictures that he's taken of me, over the years. He's got some pretty funny shots in here. My personal favorite is "I love ass". You'll know it when you see it.

Thanks Greg!

Enjoy,
Mr.B

Fuck Christian Bale.

Seriously, fuck that guy.

I just listened to THIS audio clip of Bale throwing a tantrum on the set of the new Terminator movie. (Before you give it a listen, be forewarned that it's NSFW - Loads of profanity.)

So, here's the setup, Bale is acting SO HARD in a scene of McG's new Terminator movie, that the mere sight of the director of photgraphy - doing his job and checking the lights - set Bale off into a tizzy. A pompous, spoiled, raging asshole rant about this other guy. He threatens to kick this guys ass. He demands that this guy get fired. He refuses to come back to the set until this guy is fired.

And the guy - "Shane" the Director of Photography for this gig - has the sheer audacity to - apologize immediately?!? HOW DARE HE?!?

The director, McG, is called over and he isn't sufficiently outraged to mollify Bale. In fact, nobody but Bale seems to realize what a terrible offense this guy has committed. Why, it's tantamount to Bale tearing down this guys lights! Which he also threatens to do.

You know what? Fuck Christian Bale. Nothing he has done on film, so endears me to him that I can easily ignore this. He isn't fucking Batman. He isn't the Machinist. He isn't a master illusionist. He's a bully. And an asshole. And a terrible person. The absolute worst aspect of actors and hollywood that I can imagine. He's it.

I can't imagine the circumstances where this type of screaming, shitty behavior is acceptable. It's because the people he's working with are professionals, that he didn't get HIS ass kicked by everyone there. (THAT is the headline I want to read - "Christian Bale gets his ass kicked by Director of Photography".)

So, I'm done with this guy. Absolutely done with him. His star might be earning him 20 mil+ for his films, but he's no draw for me. I could care less if he's in this shit-ass Terminator movie (Spoiler Alert: The real older John Connors is a coward until he's killed, skinned and then his skin is worn by a terminator with the mind of a hardened criminal inside. There, I just ruined the fucking movie for you. Just like the writes ruined it by ignoring everything set up in the first two movies and tossing it out the window. I just saved you 8 bucks.) I won't go see this movie. I'll talk other people out of it. And I'll tell them about this audio tape and send them links to it and they can hear for their own ears, what a rotten fuck Christian Bale is.

I hope Johnny Depp shoots this shithead in the face in "Dillinger". I know it's not historically accurate, but that's what I want to see.

You know what, I'm skipping that movie too. The "Bale Ban" is in full effect. Tell your friends. Christian Bale is a total wanker. Tell them why. Send them a link to that audio tape. Spread the word!

Fuck that guy... all the way to the box office.

Cheers,
Mr.B

"Color Of Your Blues" by Money Mark.

I finally broke down and bought this song off of Itunes.

I heard it in this trailer, a month or so ago, and it stuck with me. I would catch myself humming it, without knowing the words or where I'd heard the song. Yesterday, while I was searching for other music, I remembered the tune, remembered where I'd heard it, researched the title and then bought it off of Itunes.

The song is "Color Of Your Blues" by Money Mark.

And it punches me directly in the heart, every time I hear it.

I think it's sad and it's sweet. Some of the best songs are.

Color Of Your Blues - Money Mark

Check it out, if your heart needs a good punch too.

Cheers,
Mr.B

Chasing Dragons...

I guess it's okay to discuss this now. I'm trying to hold off from mentioning new stuff, until they solidify. But this has been bumped up, so I'll go ahead and tell you about it.

Two weeks ago, I saw an ad on Craigslist for an audition for the host of a new webisode series that's starting up in Chicago. The concept behind this series is, "The Daily Show Correspondants covering Nothing But Chicago Stuff". So, a localized "Daily Show". An idea that I really dig.

And, honestly, my thought was, "If I can get three or four of these down and they don't look like shite, I can use this as my audition tape to become an actual Daily Show correspondant." As with most of these opportunities, I sent out my interest and availability, with the expectation that I wouldn't hear back from them.

I submitted several headshots, a letter of interest, a recent resume and waited. A week later, I got an email from the producer/director, saying that he'd researched me on YouTube and liked what he saw and asked me if I wouldn't consider becoming "The Chicago Guy" for his series of webisodes.

There will be several hosts for the show. Each one representing a different area of expertise. The Sports Guy. The Club Chick. The Theater Nerd. The Food Eater?!? Me? I will be The Chicago Guy. Dealing with Chicago events, Chicago history and representing the cities perspective. I don't know who the other hosts will be. I think that they're already cast from other sources. Me? I'm the king of this pile of miscreants.

Originally, my first shoot was scheduled for Feb. 15th. At the Chicago Auto Show. Doing a segment called "The Women Of The Auto Show". And I still might do that segment. I have to tell you, I've been secretly planning some Hilarious Bits for that shoot, if it happens.

Today, I got an email from the producer/director of the show and their correspondant that they had lined up for this weekend, had to cancel. She forgot to ask for work off for it. So, they have a segment and no host. I've agreed to take on the gig.

The segment is set to be shot all day, on Sunday, from the Chinatown New Years Eve Parade. The idea is that the segment host will give us a little bit of history of the Chinatown parade and Chinese New Years and then spend the entire segment trying to get a position in one of those Chinese Dragons and actually walk IN THE PARADE! Or RUN in the parade. Because, if they actually let me drive one of those Dragons, we ARE going to run. I promise it.

I shot an email to Greg to see if he's free too. I'd like to bring him and his camera along to photograph the whole experience. In addition to the segments, the show wants to also maintain a blog. And "Behind The Scenes" pics might also make nice additional content to the blog until the segment is edited and ready to go. I'm waiting to hear back from him, if he's available. And furthermore, if the producer is cool with my bringing him. I'm sure it will be fine, though.

So, on this Sunday, in the freezing Chicago cold, I'll don my best business suit, long underwear and heavy overcoat, pick up a microphone and chase dragons in Chinatown. Sounds pretty exciting to me!!!

Cheers,
Mr.B